Pressure Point (Point #2) (12 page)

“Fuck!” I hiss again, abruptly swerving into the exit lane of the next stop that I see. I jerk the car to an uneven stop in a gas station. Reaching up, I bash a closed fist into the steering wheel, releasing another round of expletives.

For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do next. For the first time in my life, I literally ran from a problem that I created of my own volition. For the first time in my life, I want to take comfort in a woman, and I doubt that she’ll ever speak to me again after the way I behaved.

Buzzing from the center console on my phone startles me out of my thoughts.
Zoe calling…

My plan forms instantaneously. First and foremost, I must take care of my sister in her time of need. Once the dust settles, I’ll apologize to Stella. I have no time for a relationship anyway.

Right, keep telling yourself you don’t want to see her, buddy.

Stella

A blur of yellow passes in front of my bleary eyes. I let out a strangled yelp and clamber into the backseat when the taxi halts a few feet ahead of me. The driver grunts his acknowledgment after I rattle off my address, not too far from the city mansion full of bitter memories. Fumbling through my purse with cold-tipped fingers, I dig out my phone and thumb a text to Violet, asking what she’s doing. Max has a shift at the station, leaving her home alone.

As the cab idles outside the condominium building, my cell phone vibrates with an incoming call from Violet. I hand the driver cash, muttering for him to keep the change as I wedge the device under my ear.

“Hi.” I’m hoarse, a subdued version of myself under the weight of heartache.

“Can I safely assume it didn’t go well at Zoe’s?”

I shoulder into the building, climbing docilely up the stairs to my second story place.

“Worse than I could have imagined,” I mumble into the phone as I shoulder my way inside my home. The mellow blue-green walls do nothing to calm me. Shrugging off my coat, I notice a tightness in my chest that was not there this morning.

“Putting my jacket on now, grabbing a bottle of wine, and I’ll be over. Order some takeout,” Violet commands and clicks off the line before I have time to argue. Despite my stunted synapses, I manage to use my computer to get us pizza, though the rock lodged in my gut will probably prevent me from ever desiring food again.

I rip my sweater over my head, swivel out of the jeans, and toss my underwear into the hamper. The temperature of the shower water reaches scalding before I step behind the curtain. I wrench a bar of soap across my body, scrubbing away the remnants of Blake.

In all my fantasies about Blake, I never imagined that after we made love I’d want him off me. In my mind, I saw myself calm, sated, and sprawled against his broad chest, his fingers drawing lazy circles on my back. The reality of the situation is ugly, demeaning, and almost too painful to recount. I scrub and scrub until my skin is an angry, puckering pink. Maybe if I wash hard enough, this nightmare will fade away.

I wish.

Wrapped in a calf-length terrycloth robe, I putter into the living-slash-kitchen-slash-dining room where Violet and Felix stand working a corkscrew in a bottle of Montepulciano. She has a key, and when Max and Felix aren’t working at the fire station together, my friend spends most of her time with the model-gorgeous dark blond. They’ve grown tight, probably because they come from similar rural Midwestern towns. The minute Violet shoots me a sympathetic smile, tears start leaking out of my eyes.

“Stop being nice to me, please,” I whimper.

Felix walks across the room and gives me a squeeze. Despite his hulking size, the guy holds me carefully as if I’m a delicate piece of glass. Violet understands my need to be handled without kid gloves. Her look of concern morphs into a gently mocking grin. “Toughen up, chickie, and have a glass of wine. When you’re good and drunk, you can tell us what on this glorious December evening has brought you to tears.” Then she extends a wine glass in my direction. I take a hearty chug then wipe the droplets of liquid resting on my upper lip with the sleeve of my robe.

“That’s sort of better,” I admit.

“Sort of?” Felix asks.

“Let me get dressed,” I call over my shoulder, “then we can talk.” In a protective armor of baggy gray sweatpants and a red hoodie, I find my way back to where Violet and Felix sit on my overstuffed couch. She sprinkles red pepper on a square of pizza and he offers me a slice.

“No malarkey about not being hungry. If your mom were here, she’d insist you eat. In her absence, I will fulfill that role. Get your pizza on,” Felix says.

I fall onto the sofa next to Violet and take another swallow of the dark cherry liquid. “Wine is good, but not a liquid dinner.” She swipes the stem from my hand and places it on my coffee table.

I eye her warily, still not ready to divulge what happened. Shame colors my thoughts. Don’t I value myself more than to be another fling to Blake Campbell?

Felix shoves a plate into my hands and I numbly chew, the cheese tasting like hot, melted plastic in my mouth. The three of us sit there silently. My gaze fixes on the glass-topped coffee table. Behind me, I can practically feel the heavy eye contact Violet and Felix share. They have that silent conversation thing down to an art. Kind of like Zoe and I used to. What was left of my appetite shrivels, and I drop the plate on the table with a clatter.

“Max and I want a small wedding.” Violet fills the emptiness of the living room with her words. “We were thinking just the family and maybe a rooftop in the summer. But nothing wild.”

I find my voice because the decision surprises me immensely. “You’re a party planner and you want a small, nondescript wedding?”

“Co-signed,” Felix chimes in.

Violet offers a sheepish shrug. “There’s no family on my side to attend a wedding. Dad won’t walk me down the aisle; Mom won’t be there to help with dress shopping. I don’t want all of that pomp and circumstance. At the end of all the hoopla, it’s about Max and me. I want to make the day about the man I love, not the reminders of a past that doesn’t care about my future.”

“Oh, V.” My worries fly out the window and I toss my arms around her slim shoulders, pulling her to me. “Your family may have unrealistic beliefs about who you should be, but the Baccinos don’t. Violet belongs in our clan.
Always.
”

“What about the big dude sitting to your left?” Felix asks incredulously. “I’m as much your family as you are mine. Last time I checked, you are the platonic yin to my yang. Forget those religious zealots. We love you without condition.”

Violet gives me a squeeze of her own and settles back into the couch, shooting a loving expression at us both. “I know, believe me, I
know.
And I’m thankful for you all, more than you’ll ever know. But, really, truly, this is what Max and I want. Each other in a quiet ceremony.”

“That’s what we’ll give you.” Sure, I would love to have the whole shebang for my closest cousin and my loving friend, but I leave the decision to her. There’s time for a massive party at my wedding. The thought sends me sour almost instantly.
If I ever get married.

“Did wedding talk distract you long enough?” Violet asks.

I cram another square of pizza into my mouth, though it tastes like chalk in my dry mouth. “I slept with Blake tonight,” I say once I’ve stopped chewing. Unfortunately for me, Violet was in the middle of a sip of wine and droplets sail across the couch and ping me in the face when she spits out the liquid. Felix squawks and falls back against the couch in surprise. Both of them know that I’ve harbored a crush on him for years.

“What?” Violet shrieks incredulously. I toss a napkin at her and she cleans the dribble off her chin. I use my own hand to wipe the dots off my cheeks.

“Explain,” Felix demands.

Frowning, I cross my arms over my chest and think about how foolish I was. Meanwhile, Felix grabs me by the shoulders and shifts me into the arm of the couch. Now that we’ve switched places, I face both of them.

“I thought I was in love with him. The man could do no wrong in my eyes. Then tonight, he dashed all of my dreams in about two minutes.”

“Two minutes?” she scoffs. “Thought he could at least last for ten.” At that, a tiny giggle escapes my lips. One trickle turns into peals of laughter and soon I’m laughing hard enough for tears to build behind my eyes. Meanwhile, Violet and Felix watch me carefully.

“The joke wasn’t that funny, chickie,” she says.

“The alternative to laughing is too depressing,” I mutter when I get ahold of myself.

“Start from the beginning,” Felix says.

Quickly, I recant my visit with Zoe while my friends murmur words of encouragement and sympathy. When I hit the Blake portion of the story, Violet’s face darkens.

“He had sex with you without a condom?” she seethes.

Felix shakes his head, eyes narrowed. “Not fucking cool, Stella.”

I nod miserably. “God, I feel so cheap. What was I thinking? There was no tenderness whatsoever. He didn’t kiss me once.” Automatically, my palm cups the still tender skin at my neck. “No doubt I’ll have a hickey tomorrow. That was the opposite of adult sex. It was like a bumbling, horny guy who had no care for my pleasure. It was humiliating.”

“Stop right there. This is not humiliating to you. It’s mortifying for
him.
The guy behaved badly and doesn’t deserve to be with someone as good as you,” Violet says.

“It’s the death of a dream,” I admit forlornly. “For six years, I have imagined Blake as the guy for me. Today, he showed me…” I release a weary sigh. “I don’t know what he showed me, but whatever it was that I saw, it hurt tremendously.” Staring at my hands, I allow the conversation to lapse into silence. Then, achingly, I admit, “I love him. Loved him. I don’t know anymore. I’m so confused.”

“He’s easy to love, Stella. From everything that you’ve told me, he’s almost as perfect as Max.” That provokes a weak smile. “These are extenuating circumstances for all of you. He may have made a mistake, but that doesn’t make him unlovable.” By the sharp, painful expression that crosses her features, I know Violet’s referring to more than Blake in this situation.

“You’re right,” I murmur. “Our mistakes don’t define us; it’s what we do in light of them.”

Felix nods. “No one’s perfect, Stell. The guy looks it, but he’s got struggles. I’m not trying to justify what he did, but he’s fighting something fierce, too.”

Violet catches my hand in hers. “As much as I hate to say it, you probably need a break from all things Zoe and Blake. Give them time to figure out their issues. Well, give Zoe the benefit of the doubt. Blake, on the other hand, is on the top of my bad news bears list.”

Her sweet attempt at smack talk makes me smile weakly again. “There’s absolutely no way that I’m contacting him again. If I don’t see Blake again for a year that will be soon enough for me.”

One month later

“Take a breath. You’re losing color in the face. Clearly, you need some good old oxygen in your lungs.”

I look down at my hands, clasped tightly together in my lap. “There’s a slim to none chance that we’ll run into him. How often does the owner of the team lurk around with the operations group?”

“I’ve never met Blake Campbell, but from what I’ve seen in the gossip magazines and TV, the man has never lurked a day in his life,” Violet teases, bumping me with her shoulder.

Rolling my eyes, I hunker down into the backseat of the taxi. In a few minutes, we’ll be at the Chicago Scrapers’ training facility, directly across the street from the massive Chicago Center. There’s a slim chance that I’ll run into Blake at the client meeting today. Trepidation still courses through me. There’s been radio silence since that night a month ago. Christmas came and went. New Year’s danced past with a flurry of snow showers and silence from Blake. No text, no email, no carrier pigeon arrived. After the way that he left me, I’m not surprised he disappeared, but it still stings. Tremendously.

It’s been a harrowing month. Getting caught up on the demands of the Chicago Center at warp speed was challenging enough, but doing that on top of pretending Blake didn’t shred my heart was nearly impossible. The cherry on top of this whole mess is the lack of Zoe in my life. I’m hurting and I want her advice, but she’s pushed me out of her life. And that guts me on a daily basis because I believe that I have failed her.